Battle of Barnett
The Battle of Barnett was fought between the Manticoran Alliance and the People's Navy in the Barnett System. The attack formed part of Operation Buttercup, and was executed by Eighth Fleet under the command of Admiral Hamish Alexander, Earl of White Haven. The battle was the first time where the full capabilities of the new Manticoran multi-drive missiles, podnoughts, LAC carriers and LACs were demonstrated en-mass. Prelude Following Operation Icarus, Admiral White Haven's Eighth Fleet, which had been poised to assault Barnett, was essentially turned into a "paper tiger", acting as fleet reserve by staying on station in Trevor's Star System. Hoping to resume the offensive, the First Space Lord schemed to entice the People's Navy into targeting the fleet base in Grendelsbane System. Expecting some of those forces to be pulled from DuQuesne Base in the Barnett System, the plan was to use the vast capabilities of the new MDMs, pod-laying superdreadnoughts and LAC carriers to crush the opposing force, while simultaneously occupying Barnett, Eighth Fleet's original target prior to Icarus. ( ) Order of battle Manticoran Alliance Eighth Fleet: * wall of battle: ** a task force of the Grayson Space Navy - Admiral Judah Yanakov, Including: fleet flagship [[GNS Benjamin the Great|GNS Benjamin the Great]], GSN task force flagship [[GNS Honor Harrington|GNS Honor Harrington]] and some other Honor Harrington class SD-Ps. ** a task force of the RMN,Including some Medusa class SD-P, 42 SD and 3 DN. ** a task force of the Erewhon Navy,12 DN. * a CLAC element * screenBattlecruisers, heavy cruisers and lighter units. People's Navy Barnett System Defence: * wall of battle * screen: ** battlecruiser element ** cruiser element ** destroyer element * LAC element * fixed defences: ** 40-45 forts ** system defense missile pods Course of battle Coming out of hyper twenty-two light-minutes from the primary, Eighth Fleet began a leisurely advance on the planet Enki. Admiral Alec Dimitri and his People's Commissioner Sandra Connors were both stumped as to why Admiral White Haven would give them ample time to assemble their forces to come out to meet him. White Haven was disappointed that there weren't more enemy forces in the system, as the more forces present, the more he could destroy, given his overwhelming firepower. He had been given permission to demonstrate the full capabilities of the new Manticoran "Ghost Rider" MDM missiles, which had nearly eight times the range and three times the speed than anything seen before. When the range dropped to fifteen million kilometers (about 7 million km outside the PN's maximum missile range), White Haven gave the order to fire three salvos of over three thousand missiles each. The first wave targeted one hundred and fifty missiles on each superdreadnought and dreadnought. The second wave targeted the battlecruisers and battleships, and the third wave bypassed the defending ships completely, and instead obliterated all the missile pods, drones, and satellites in orbit around the planet Enki. As soon as the third wave detonated, the ''Shrike''- and ''Ferret''-class LACs came out of stealth and hammered the surviving ships, reducing most to wrecks. Their stealth systems, coupled with the decoys and jammers fired from the capital ships, allowed them to disappear as quickly as they'd appeared, denying the Havenite forts and LACs an opportunity to counter-attack. Admiral White Haven, expecting Admiral Thomas Theisman to still be in command of the system, sent a message to DuQuesne Base, demanding that he surrender the system, or Eighth Fleet would fire again, slaughtering everyone on the forts as well, something White Haven did not want to do if he didn't have to. Seeing that his units had no capability to fire on the Manticoran forces at such an extreme range, and very few ships and pods remaining as it was, he formally asked his People's Commissioner for permission to surrender the system. ( ) Aftermath References Barnett Barnett